Intuitions, Networks, Disruptions

For those who’ve asked: yes, I do continue to record my presentations, even though I haven’t posted any audio for a long time. I’m hoping to rectify that (if “rectify” is the right word) over the next few weeks. Fair warning!

Here’s part of the audio of a presentation I did recently at the University Continuing Education Association’s 2009 conference (which I blogged a little bit here. My first presentation at UCEA, appropriately enough, was on podcasting, back in 2006. This year the pre-conference workshop was on “Convergence-Disruption-Transformation: Digital Alchemy and the New Online Pedagogy.” Elizabeth Meyer, Director of Online Learning at the University of California San Diego, put the panel together. I’m grateful to Elizabeth for the opportunity.

As you’ll hear, I immediately disrupted my own talk (auto-disruption?), so inspired was I by Jon’s lead-off presentation. I get around to the talk I’d planned about a third of the way through. The “Janet” I speak of at the beginning of the podcast was a conferee I’d just met and spoken with during the break before my presentation.

8 thoughts on “Intuitions, Networks, Disruptions

  1. I was delighted to listen to this – keep rectifying.

    The beginning of your presentation reminds me of something I tell my research and rhetoric students – when we research (however loosely that may be interpreted) a topic, read what others have said about it, and then absorb, synthesize, and reformulate their ideas into our own, we earn our seats at the conversation table. That these conversations can take place face-to-face is nothing new, but technology is the new face-to-face, and it is everywhere, which opens the whole world to all of us. I absolutely love that I can sit here in VA and type this, and you will read it, as will anyone else who chances on this blog, deliberately or accidentally, and will then wander off somewhere, online or down the block, to talk to someone else though some other format. And so it goes.

  2. This was a very stimulating talk. Thanks for sharing it here.

    I have a question about the Chris Dede clip. He compares learning to bonding, and the member of the audience who asked you about bonding in a large (possibly online) class seemed to imply that learning involves bonding. I would agree that effective learning environments are community-centered (thanks, How People Learn), but it seemed to me that Dede wasn’t saying that learning equals bonding but rather learning is as complex (and varied) an activity as bonding. Is that your interpretation of his comments?

    I like the metaphor because it reminds us that a one-size-fits-all approach to education isn’t likely to be as effective as an approach that acknowledge, allows, and supports different ways of learning and knowing.

  3. Great question.

    I *think* Chris probably meant that learning was as varied as bonding, as you say. I agree with that, of course. IT in education allows for what a VP at Elsevier calls “mass customization.”

    But I also think that learning involves bonding in the sense of intimacy, the potential for what Cavallo terms compelling personal experiences that emerge within social contexts. I think that variety alone can lead to a consumerist mentality. I will think about this more, as your question has opened up a new set of questions for me. Thanks!

  4. @Happy Love the metaphor of the conversation table. As Martha says in her recent comment, it’s all about the communion. I think of that passage in PL V where “communion sweet” (“sweet” in that charged Miltonic sense) becomes such a conversation table, such a feast….

    It is remarkable how technologies such as these can make the banquet table both larger and more intimate at the same time.

  5. Perhaps most remarkable is how there is always room at the table for new voices. Ah, “communion sweet” indeed, and “with thee conversing”….

  6. Pingback: Professional development in museums – Museum Blogging

  7. Pingback: Dede’s “sleeping, eating and bonding” metaphor and the diversity of learning and its impacts for e-learning « The Weblog of (a) David Jones

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